Julia Kasdorf
Julia Mae Spicher Kasdorf (born December 6, 1962) is an American poet and academic.Patrick Kratz, Kasdorf, Julia, Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Pennsylvania State University. Web, Oct. 16, 2014. Life Youth and education Kasdorf was born Julia Mae Spicher in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Her parents were Mennonites born in Big Valley, Pennsylvania, who chose to leave their rural community in central Pennsylvania for work in a city. She grew up in the suburbs southeast of Pittsburgh near Irwin, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.Julia Spicher, Moss Lotus (Goshen, Indiana: Pinchpenny Press, 1983) Spicher began to write poetry seriously during her high school years and credits the Poets in the Schools program for nurturing her interest in writing. Her earliest published poem appeared in 1977 in Images Remembered II, an anthology of the Poets in the Schools program. 2 years later she wrote in workshops at Summer Happening '79 and under Deborah Burnham and H.L. Van Brunt at Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts in 1980. Spicher attended Goshen College, in Goshen, Indiana. In 1981 she won the Scholastic Writing Awards with work that was then published in Literary Cavalcade. While a student at Goshen College she also had poems published in With, Builder, Christian Living, and the college magazines Record and Broadside. Also as a student at Goshen, she visited China for the autumn of 1982 to do her Study-Service Trimester at Sichuan Teachers College, and as a sophomore English major at Goshen in 1983 she published Moss Lotus, a chapbook of poetry inspired by her Chinese experiences. She earned a B.A., an M.A. in creative writing, and in 1997 a Ph.D. from New York University,[http://english.la.psu.edu/facultystaff/Bio_Kasdorf.htm 'Julia Spicher Kasdorf', Penn State: The Department of English (2005)]. Retrieved August 30, 2006. where she studied with poet Yehuda Amichai, among others. Her Ph.D. dissertation, Fixing Tradition: The cultural work of Joseph W. Yoder and his relationship with the Amish community of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, was supervised by Gordon M. Pradl. Career Kasdorf's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and numerous other journals and anthologies. She is the author of three poetry collections--''Sleeping Preacher'' (1992), Eve's Striptease (1998), and Poetry in America (2011)--all published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She also co-edited an anthology, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, with Michael Tyrell (New York University Press, 2007). She is also the author of a scholarly study of Pennsylvania writer Joseph W. Yoder, Fixing Tradition, and co-editor of two editions of Pennsylvania local color novels, Rosanna of the Amish by Joseph W. Yoder and The House of the Black Ring by Fred Lewis Pattee. Her essay collection, The Body and the Book: Writing a Mennonite Life, was awarded the Book of the Year award by the Conference on Christianity and Literature. She is Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Writing In The Body and the Book, Kasdorf explores the cultural and geographical inspiration for her writing in the Mennonite and Amish communities of her origin as well as in the New York City where she studied creative writing and published her first book. In her essay, "A Place to Begin," she comments, "I liked being able to think in the free space between places . . . As poetry's power often comes from linking two unlike things to release new insight, so my life has been charged by the experience of embodying a connection between disparate locations" (p. 8). Recognition Kasdorf won the 1991 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her first book Sleeping Preacher. She has since won the Great Lakes Colleges Award for New Writing (1993), Book of the Year Award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature (2001), and the Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2004. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Poetry in 2009. Eve's Striptease was named a top 20 poetry book of 1998 by Library Journal. Publications Poetry * Moss Lotus (chapbook; as "Julia Spicher"; illustrated by Suelyn Lee). Goshen, IN: Pinchpenny Press, 1983. *''Sleeping Preacher''. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. *''Eve's Striptease''. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. *''Poetry in America''. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Non-fiction *''Fixing Tradition: Joseph W. Yoder, Amish-American''. Telford, PA: Pandora Press; Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2003. Edited * Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn (edited with Michael Tyrell). New York University Press, 2007. * Joseph Yoder, Rosanna of the Amish (edited with Joshua R. Brown). Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2008. Collected editions * The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite life: Essays and poems. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001; University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2009. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Julia Kasdorf}, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 16, 2014. See also * [[List of U.S. poets] References *''Contemporary Authors Online''. The Gale Group, 2004. PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000111881 *Hostetler, Ann, ed. Julia Kasdorf. A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. Iowa City, IA: Univ. of Iowa Press, 2003. Notes External links ;Poems *Julia Spicher Kasdorf profile & 3 poems at the Academy of American Poets *Julia Kasdorf b. 1962 at the Poetry Foundation. *Julia Kasdorf at PoemHunter (4 poems) ;Audio / video * "The Writer's Almanac", Poems by Julia Spicher Kasdorf *Julia Kasdorf at YouTube ;Books *Julia Kasdorf at Amazon.com ;About *Julia Spicher Kasdorf at Penn State University Department of English *"Julia Spicher Kasdorf" author web page at Penn State University. *Kasdorf, Julia at Pennsylvania Center for the Book Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:American poets Category:Writers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:American Mennonites Category:Mennonite writers Category:People from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:21st-century poets Category:21st-century women writers Category:American women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets Category:American academics Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty